Share this story!            

PSEB suffers with no one at the helm

By Amir Nafees

LAHORE: A large number of Information Technology (IT) projects are at stake owing to the seat of Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) Managing Director (MD) lying vacant for the last six months.

Despite all the tall claims of government regarding the ideal development in the field of IT, the lassitude in appointing the MD has put at risk the projects of Software Technology Parks (STPs), industrial automation and IT libraries besides decreasing the ratio of IT exhibitions and an indirect overall decrease in the IT jobs.

Sources told Daily Times that all the PSEB projects, approved by the Planning Commission of Pakistan, were to be completed by December 31, 2002. Due to the vacant MD seat, the pace of work on these projects suffered. These projects were given another three-month extension till March 2003, but unfortunately these projects were still far from completion, sources added.

While mentioning of the possible reasons behind the vacant MD seat, sources said the bureaucracy at the Ministry of Information and Technology and Telecom was envious of professionals hired from private sector for such a high-profile job. The last MD, Sohail Shahid, had an unceremonious exit in September last year because of such jealousy, sources said, adding that Joint Secretary Shahid Latif Anwar was in charge of PSEB affairs at the moment but he too visited the office briefly.

Mr Anwar, sources said, could not ensure the timely completion of these projects as it could only be done under the active supervision of an IT professional.

Giving further details of the delayed projects, sources said the most-affected projects were exhibitions, ISO certifications, industrial automation, business councils, libraries, STPs in Karachi, STPs in private sector, incubators for hospitals and subsidies to software companies.

Sources said only a professional could decide which international exhibition to attend and where and when to hold or participate in a local one. In the absence of such a professional, the PSEB looked towards the Ministry that too shied away from the task, sources added.

Despite the completion of some automation projects, nobody was there to set their inauguration date. Similarly, some 60 software houses had been listed but nobody in the Ministry was ready to sign the papers for calling the international auditors for the final inspections, sources said, adding a majority of the professionals hired from the private sector had left the PSEB owing to its state of affairs.

Sources said that the worries of the remaining staff had increased after the finance division blocked the PSEB funds. Sources said no body was taking into account the fact that a valuable foreign exchange was going waste that used to come by the local software companies participating in the international exhibitions.

When contacted, Federal Minister for Science and Information Technology Awais Leghari confirmed that bureaucracy was creating such hurdles. He said the government was revising the whole set-up to loose the grip of bureaucracy. However, he could not tell how long will it take to appoint a new PSEB MD.

Home | National

Share this story!